


Dean Street Diner

by britishngay



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: F/F, Hope y'all like it?, This is... messy but fun?, Veronica and JD are broke students who need money and hate life woohoo, diner au, some cheeky lil Betty/Duke action just you wait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britishngay/pseuds/britishngay
Summary: The diner smells like the cigarette smoke that seeped into the leather booths thirty years ago, with a mix of coffee and a dash of grease. Unfortunately, you've gotten used to the smell after working there for bordering on six months. It has fading red paint and plastic floors that hurt your feet like a bitch. And don't start on the uniform, the god damn uniform, but hey it's money.(Or a Chansaw Diner Au because I can't control myself when it comes to writing stuff)
Relationships: Heather Chandler/Veronica Sawyer
Comments: 17
Kudos: 168





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Study leave is hitting different huh
> 
> Sorry for these random bursts of updates then nothing forever xx

"Two cheeseburgers, one without pickles, both with fries and two root beer floats. Can I get you anything else?" 

"A smile would be nice sweetheart." One of the guys chuckles while the other nods in agreement. It's your sixth hour in this dump and your cheeks gave out months ago from smiling so much. You still plaster on a fake but vaguely realistic smile so you'll get tipped. 

If anyone had told you that college books were so ridiculously expensive then you would have saved up instead of drinking your money away with your friends in senior year. Then you could be relaxing with your friends, getting high and actually living a life. Instead of doing a graveyard shift in-between classes and doing whatever essays you can in whatever free time you have.

The diner smells like the cigarette smoke that seeped into the leather booths thirty years ago, with a mix of coffee and a dash of grease. Unfortunately, you've gotten used to the smell after working there for bordering on six months. It has fading red paint and plastic floors that hurt your feet like a bitch. And don't start on the uniform, the god damn uniform, but hey it's money. You walk over the kitchen to give JD the order. He pokes his head out of the small counter by the kitchen.

"The smiling assholes back again huh?" 

"How can ya tell?" 

"Your smile is starting to look like you're constipated, but instead of shit it's anger." He says grandly, waving his arms around slightly. 

Dramatic little shit.

"Thanks?" 

You put the order with the others and look at who's in the diner. The 'smiling assholes' or as you like to call them: Highschool has-beens, not to hard to tell they are, you recognise one from stumbling out one of the dorm's a few weeks back. One student doing an all-nighter, who you have been religiously supplying with coffee, sits at the counter. They remind you of you two years ago so you quite often make their bill cheaper than it should be, even if it comes out of your paycheck. And finally the bum that you let stay there even though he doesn't buy anything. You sigh, it'll be ten minutes until the burgers are ready and you know that the has-beens like their drinks with their meals so you roll your shoulders and head to the back, reaching for your warn copy of Gatsby. You don't even like the book that much but your Professor drones on about it so much that you're trying to read it in a new light. 

It isn't working.

Just as your hand is on the door to the backroom, the front door jingles. You hold in a groan, no one ever good comes to a diner at 3am. (The student has been here since before the shift, so they're automatically exempt from that rule). You turn to see three girls dressed like traffic lights at the door, looking around for places to sit. Smoothing out you uniform, you grab three menus as they decide on a booth far away from the has-beens, good choice.

"Hello, welcome to the Dean Street Diner, here are your menus. Do you want any drinks?" 

The girls look a little worse for wear, all three of them are swaying. They're all wearing blazers and shirts that look stuffy and hot and their skirts are so small you guess that they're sticking to the very old and very gross booth seats. They must be drunk, or at least tipsy, the one in yellow appears to be talking to herself quietly, the one in green appears to be the most sober and the red on just sits there staring ahead, she snaps out of her daydream. Blue eyes focus on you and suddenly you feel like you're under a microscope. You're fairly certain this random woman could cut mountains with a look. 

"Can I have a black coffee?" The words slur together but they're legible enough, your eyes get stuck on her red lipstick for a second before turning to the green one.

"Heather that's nasty, how can you drink that tar?" The red one (Heather?) rolls her eyes at the green one. "Anyway, I'll have as much water as possible."

"Can I have a coke?" The yellow one finally speaks up, a dopey smile on her face.

"Uh, diet, zero or regular?" You supply, her face scrunches up in thought, before finally answering.

"Diet please."

"Okay, I'll get those to you right away." You give them a complimentary smile before leaving. You move behind the counter near JD's kitchen, he should be done with the burgers by now.

"You got the asshole's meals?"

"Yeah, wanna give 'em something extra?"

You go into the kitchen, starting a phlegm glob. The smell of oil and burning hits you like a tonne of bricks but you battle through it. He starts making the noises too, both of you go above the floats, laughing when you make eye contact.

"Nothing?"

"Yeah I got nothin'." You pick up the floats and burgers and head out the sweltering kitchen. Placing the meals in front of the has-beens, they look at the meals like they want to fuck them and dig in. 

You grab the girls drinks and head to their table, they all look slightly more awake after taking a few gulps.

"Do you need some more time to order or do you want to order now?"

They all rattle off their orders, all greasy and rather large but hey, if they're trying to sober up slightly they've chosen the right place. Time passes like syrup until JD's finishes with the meals. At this point Heather's red blazer is off and her white shirt's sleeves are rolled up, showing off her blood red nails and some very nice arms. Woah, you haven't not been laid in that long. Actually you have not been laid in a while but hey, you can’t help it if the nightlong shift and work piling up makes your social life rapidly deteriorate. 

"Gatsby huh." Heather says, you copy must've popped up out of your pocket.

"My professor likes it," is the only thing you can say to that, not much to go on.

"Oh, you got Flemming then?" 

"How'd ya know?"

"Duke does English and my pre-law allows electives so I was in her class for a semester." Her words aren't slurring as much and her eyes have somehow become even more piercing than before. The yellow one is happily digging into her chilli dog, or as happily as someone eating a chilli dog drunk at 3am is. Pre-law suits her, she's making you want to pull up a chair tell her your life story. 

"Moby Dick is my favourite." Duke supplies, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

"Nice, I like the way Fleming went through that. I'm always happy to talk about Bob Dylan's literature references." You chuckle.

"Hey lady, can we get the bill!" The has-beens shout across the diner. You roll your eyes. After giving them their bill and having a repeat of being told to smile you see that they tip you $2 and a phone number. Wow, now you totally wanna call them and bone! Jackasses. You tidy their table and head over to the kitchen. Your feet are starting to feel the effects on the floor.

"You doin anything tomorrow night?" He asks, cleaning the stove.

"I was planning on doing some actual school work instead of work here but if you're offering an alternative..." you trail off, looking at his shark grin, at first you'd thought that that smile was bad, because it looks like he's about to trick you into drinking Drano but that's just his creepy lil face.

"There's a bar down Swallow Street which my roommate said was good, want to check it out? Bring Betty, it'll be fun."

"How much is it?"

"$3 for a pitcher-"

"I'm there." You interrupt, that's not a complete rip off, a rarity in this town. He chuckles.

"I'll be at your dorm at 7." You high five and leave the kitchen.

You notice that the girls are done with their meals and walk over to collect their plates, Duke appears to have fallen asleep at the table.

"Uh is she okay? She seemed fine a second ago?"

"Duke has the ability to look sober when she is three sheets in the wind." Heather drawls, picking her nails. "And can we have the bill?"

You look in shock about how blasé she is about all of this but, the customer is right as your boss always reminds you and you to grab their bill. They pay quickly and shuffle Duke out, they've not been the strangest group you've served at 3am, but they've been weirdly some of the nicest. 

Holy shit, they left you a 40% tip - they are definitely the nicest group. Then your eyes zero in on a red blazer hanging off a chair. You look outside to see that they must've grabbed a cab or something. 

You hope she remembers that it's here.

And you can't help but want to see those eyes again.

\--

You jolt wake because of your alarm.

Shit, you fell asleep in your diner uniform which means your bed smells like diner and now you never want to sleep in it again. You roll out of bed to your bathroom to try and shower. Thankfully your roommate, who believed in taking the hottest showers of mankind, didn't use up all the hot water and you could let the grime of the kitchen roll off you with the water.

You list through what you need to do in the 3 and a bit hours before JD comes to pick you up. Fleming's essay, notes on feminist themes in The Handmaid's Tale and four chapters of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Being a lit major in just lots of words, lots and lots of words. It's great but you've unfortunately learnt that, as your Dad always says: empty vessels make the most noise, ie the most annoying people in class are the ones who think their ideas are the best and want to broadcast it to the whole 36 people in the room.

Now and again your mind drifts to piercing blue eyes and a red blazer which you folded in your locker in case she came back for it. But every time you snap yourself out of red lipstick and carry on writing about The Handmaid's Tale.

Time passes slowly but quickly enough that you don't get too bored in-between tasks. A knock at your door saves you at 6:50, JD, despite any faults, is a stickler for punctuality.

"Greetings and salutations." He says, entering the room.

"You need to get a new line dude, seriously." You're in front of your shared mirror, smoothing your outfit.

"I like it." You roll your eyes.

"You've been using it bordering on 5 years, really, find a new one."

"You're just bitter that I'm using it on people that aren't you."

You give him the finger while applying lipstick.

"How's it going?" He gestures towards 'The Unbearable Lightness' and you groan slightly.

"The usual, Tomas sucks, Sabina is fucking class."

It’s not like you hate the book, you just dislike a majority of the characters. You’re not entirely sure why you’re reading it to be honest. The title intrigued you and once it started you didn’t really want to stop. Sometimes you find it more fun to analyse the characters negatively, it always makes them more interesting – heroic protagonists are quite often 2D. Anyway, all of these thoughts hit you as you walk to Betty’s and this ‘new bar’, which means that it’s simply a bar which JD hasn’t been kicked out of yet. It’s slightly dingy and cheap but it fits and you quickly order those delicious sounding pitchers that JD mentioned the other night. 

You, JD and Betty's night ends like every bender you guys ever do does. (After drinking away your collective $23.56). 

On your dorms roof getting high and reminiscing. 

It's never too depressing, that's only when Betty manages to score a bottle or two of red from her parents and it gets all of you sad and listening to sad songs on a loop. Sometimes when it gets really bad, JD just puts on Chopin on a loop, that's when you know to bring out the beer, and drink even more. Not healthy for your liver, but healthy for the soul.

You're just in that space where your head is light but you don't feel like your going to faint so you take that as an absolute win. 

"I used to live by an airport in Las Vegas and I liked to watch the aeroplanes land and take off." JD says, smiling slightly, waving his hands around, one of them miming a plane taking off.

"As a kid?" Betty sounds positively scandalised, oh yeah, she gets surprised by everything when high. It’s really cute, slightly annoying, but absolutely adorable.

"How edgy." You deadpan 

"Hey! It's been hard to maintain this amount of 'edge' look how the times are a changin'".

"Yeah you're so edgy with a Bob Dylan quote."

"The abuse I endure from you, Veronica Sawyer, is never ending."

"Oh please, like you don't rinse me after a single shot of tequila."

"Y'all are stupid." Comes from Betty, who's now lying on her back, and giggling uncontrollably, which obviously causes you and JD to lose it.

There's a lull in the laughter around ten minutes later and you're all just sitting there in silence.

"Remember the traffic lights?" Veronica mumbles.

"The ones on 5th and Dean?" Betty asks, completely seriously, as if there aren't twenty more traffic lights in the city. "Because, I used to think there were little glowy men in them, causing them to light up." 

"No, the girls who came in the diner yesterday. JD, JD." You hit him on the shoulder. "Do you remember them?"

"Hey, hey! Stop that will ya! Yeah, they tipped well."

"The red one was cute."

"Oh yeah?" He smiles the shark smile and you know you will very much be teased for whatever you're going to say in the next two minutes, but you're too high and tipsy to care.

"It must've been love, but it's over nooow." Betty sings quietly. You hit her on the shoulder too.

"Her eyes were like, holy shit, you know? Like fuck me, it's like they saw into my soul. And her voice? Can a voice be sexy? Because hers was. Fuck, this is because I'm inebriated, nothing to do with the red cutie."

"Uh huh, totally Sawyer."

"You're always finding people really attractive it's like, the bit of your personality that's not like the rest." Betty says, as if she's a wise sage.

JD snorts.

"Stoic Sawyer, falling in love with pretty people left, right and centre." 

"I hate you."

\--

It's been a week and the girl still hasn't picked up her blazer.

However, there have been some notable things happening in your life. Apart from finding random girls ridiculously attractive and then their face invading your thoughts almost constantly, obviously. Mainly, getting an A in that Fleming essay and Martha came to visit and you had forgotten how much you love the girl.

The best thing is remembering that winter break is coming up, a month of freedom from school work. Although your parents are away so you're staying at college, but hey, JD's not going back so you can both slowly waste away in a stinking diner in the hours 12pm - 8am almost every day.

And that's what you're doing, wasting away in a blissfully empty diner; JD using his spatula to flick broken up fries into your mouth. When the front door jingles and you’re praying to whatever God that may exist that it’s a young college student instead of anyone who could tell your manager about you slacking off. Thankfully, it is a college student.  
It is, however, Heather. With a different blazer. A grey one this time, with a red skirt.

And for all your hoping that she would come back to the diner, not once did you think about what to say. Your brain is on autopilot when she comes up to the counter, acrylics tapping on the plastic, and the words fly out of your mouth.

“Hey, welcome to Dean Street Diner, what can I get for you today?”

“I left a blazer here, do you have it?” she says curtly, wearily eyeing the diner as if she hadn’t drunkenly eaten there a week back. 

“Uh, yeah, wait a sec?” you manage to get out, after what is socially deemed too long to answer. You walk to the backroom and grab the blazer from where it was stuffed in your locker. You look in the mirror for a second to check how you look and, well, it’s not bad, you look like someone who works in the graveyard shift for a diner ie, tired and broke. 

Walking out of the backroom you see that the girl in red is having a staring competition with JD that looks so intense that you’re afraid to break it.

You clear your throat and those goddamn eyes are on you again.

Her hand shoots out and grabs the blazer from you. She looks at you with disdain.

“It’s creased. You couldn’t dry clean it?” The words are short and sharp. Much clearer than how they were the other night. She holds an air of superiority and bitchiness that doesn’t add up to tipping 40%. No one gets to look down at you, especially when they’re going to the exact same college and drunkenly eating in your diner. 

“Listen, I can barely afford by textbooks, let alone dry cleaning a blazer.”

She sneers at you.

“No need to be a bitch.”

“No need to expect me to do something like that.”

She scoffs.

“You’re lucky that I don’t call your manager on you.” 

She turns and leaves, the door jingles ferociously as she slams it. JD breaks into laughter.

“Stop it, stop fucking laughing.” 

He starts to wheeze.

“Stop it, you complete utter ass.”

“Oh, JD, she’s so hot, I hope she come gets her blazer.” He says in between laughs, making his voice higher and whinier to mock yours. You run after him around the kitchen.

“And you call yourself my friend.”

“You know I’m your best friend, don’t fucking lie.”

You finally stop at the counter and stare at each other for a second. Before you stare at the ceiling, breathing heavily – god, you’re unfit.

“You still find her hot don’t you.”

You looks at him for a second and his face splits into that grin again.

You swear to fucking god, you need new friends.


	2. Chapter 2

"Wait so let me get this straight."

“Nothing about the situation is straight!” JD quips from the kitchen, how does he even hear you from over there? Actually, you don’t want to know, JD’s ability to be in tune with almost every conversation is crazy and you’re beginning to wonder if he had some booky super powers or something. Now you’re starting to sound ridiculous, these shifts mixed with your lack of sleep are starting to catch up on themselves. 

“Betty, I’ve already told you this story twice.” You say, wiping the counter, which is still sticky somehow, even though you’ve been scrubbing it for the past ten minutes. And you don’t know why Betty is here, it’s almost two and you know full well that she has an 8am. She drinking a root beer float and sitting cross legged on the counter despite your warnings that there are stains that predate your existence.

“Fine, Heather came in, was a bit of an asshole, I talked back, gave back her blazer and she left. That’s all, nothing else happened.”

“You still find her hot though.” You give up on the impossible task of cleaning the counter. You take a second before answering, weighing the pros and cons of answering properly. Either way you’ll get teased.

“Maybe.” She makes an exasperated noise, throwing her head back, exposing a mark that someone left at the base of her neck which you would love to get into now but you’re the centre of attention for this evening and you can ask her all about this tomorrow or whenever the next mark shows up.

“Why do you only like assholes?” Okay, unfair, you’ve liked a few assholes. Some of them have been real dicks, but they haven’t been the absolute worst. But you don’t think that Heather should be counted into that mix, you haven’t even dated her, just had two encounters with her. One of which was you doing your job so you can’t really count that, so one encounter. And that was a whack one.

“You can talk.”

“Hey! That was one time, and the sex was really good.” That was true, you had heard in excruciating detail how Betty had had amazing hate sex with this girl from her hall, she hadn’t given that many names apart from the name Duke, which only made you and JD even more invested in the story. Over time you gave up and her stories started to fizzle out, guessing that their encounters had stopped so really she has no right to be judging you on this.

“So why’re you judging me on this?”

“I’m not, judging I just want to give you some shit about something because it’s fun.” She smiles, drinking some of her float. You roll your eyes, even though you know that you do the exact same thing to her and JD.

“And you call Heather an asshole.” She drops her jaw and brings her hand to her chest melodramatically. Your friends are so dramatic and extra and you wouldn’t change them for a second.

“Hey! Need I remind you of how you acted during the whole Duke fiasco?” Okay that’s fair game, you did almost interrogate her for a week straight but to be fair so did JD. It was a magical time of teasing and finding out in way too much detail about your friends sex life even though you asked about it.

“Okay okay, friend privilege I guess.” You concede, you hate being hypocritical, plus you wouldn’t change anything about your relationship with Betty and JD. Even if you get complete hell for it.

“Did she tell you about the fact that she stared at her for like a minute before she actually replied to Heather?” JD yells from the kitchen.

Scratch that, your friends are assholes.

“Okay, let’s give Veronica a couple hours off.”

“Fine, but as soon as our shift ends we’re going off on her.” JD says and Betty nods vehemently.

“Thank you, you are truly so charitable.” You deadpan, Betty lets out a laugh.

“Anyways, I know where we’re going this week.” She rubs her hands together.

“Where? The bar is going to be hard to top, that was a good night.” You say and JD fist pumps the air.

“It’s a party.”

“A party?” JD asks, his tone dripping in disgust, he leans through the serving area and looks at you and Betty with scrutiny.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“Hey, it’s Betty, it’s gonna be a good time regardless dude.” You defend Betty, knowing that she wouldn’t take you to some shitty frat party, covered in dude-bros who don’t know how to function like a proper human. 

Maybe it'll be a good time.

\--

“I can’t believe we’re going to frat party because of you, Betty Finn.” JD says, looking at the house with a mix of disdain and fear. You can hear the music from out here, it’s thumping and loud and the kind of music that you enjoy at a party and as soon as you try to listen to it as home you hate it. And the smell of weed is so prevalent, that you wonder how the cops haven’t been called yet.

“Some guy in my anthro class said it would be fun.” She shrugs, a group of people push past you and the others to get to the house.

“Well fairs fair, you took us to the bar, Betty is taking us to a frat party. Let’s go!”

Betty smiles and JD still looks like a sulky cat. You start to move while he stays put.

“Think about all of the free booze.”

“Yeah and I think they have pool tables.”

“Fine. But the minute I wanna get out of there, I’m finding you guys and pulling you out of the house.”

“Deal.”

You finally move, you’re not the biggest fan of this idea but it could be fun and you really meant it when you said free booze. The house is massive and it looks like a stereotypical college party, students are everywhere, dancing, kissing, drinking, laughing – it’s like the senior parties in High School but on steroids. Their clothes almost discarded from the heat of the house. There are pictures all over the walls of various frat boys, some look pretty decent but, unfortunately, most look like the has-beens that make your shifts at the diner living hell.

“Wanna grab some drinks?” Betty shouts over the music to you, you nod and make your way through the crowd toward the kitchen. It’s not as loud in the kitchen and there are drinks everywhere, bottles upon bottles of transparent, brown and some weird blue or green ones. There’s a keg or two lying around and a shirtless dude with the name of the frat painted on his chest quickly pushes past you to grab a keg before running back out, you hear him shout something and there being a cheer in response. You need to be a lot less sober, quickly, you make your way toward the spirits, JD next to you.

“Vodka, tequila or rum?”

“Rum.”

You turn to him, last time he drank rum it did not end well. Well, it’s not like he threw up everywhere and put on Chopin, it was more like he acted like a crazy college student which meant you got kicked out of two bars, and then he did a freestyle rap about your boss at the diner, you really wish you had something to record it with.

“You sure?”

“I need it to get through the stupidity of the people at the party.”

“Don’t be a dick.” You chastise him, while this is going on, Betty has been chugging beers, and she’s on her third by the time you turn around. You open the vodka and start drinking, it burns your throat and sets your stomach on fire but you need to let lose. It was the last week of class and some professors let you a bit off the hook in lectures but some didn’t let you forget it that they were assigning things for the holiday. You need to let loose. And need to be drunker to enjoy the party properly.

“Right, as enjoyable as drinking in silence is, I’m going to go and trick people into thinking I’m famous.” JD sets down his drink and glides out the room.

“We really should’ve stopped him.” Betty says, opening another beer.

“Yeah, but it’s too late now, he’s already talking to some random dudes.”

You look through the small serving window to see JD wearing his sunglasses and acting completely different. He’s still waving his arms around while he talks but instead he’s acting was cockier, his back is ramrod straight and he’s laughing like a rich dude.

At least he’s having fun? 

The night moves quickly, quicker than you imagined. But you find yourself not really minding, your head is swimming and stomach is swirling slightly and it feels good, better then you thought it would. Bass surrounds you as you dance weirdly with Betty, throwing your arms everywhere, jumping about – it feels like nothing matters except for this hour. You take some air by going to the kitchen and grabbing another drink.

“Hey! Gatsby girl?” You turn to see the green one from Heather’s group looking at you. She walks over, she stares at you, and while her eyes aren’t as piercing as Heather’s, they bore into you and you can feel her judge your character without too much entitlement, unlike her friend.

“Yeah, a guy from Betty’s anthro class said it would be fun.” She nods as if she knows who Betty is and as if she cares, because her eyes clearly indicate how little she actually does.

“Listen I’m only doing this because my friend makes awful decisions about everything.” You look at her with a confused expression on your face. “Heather-“ Oh you get it now. “is surprisingly awful at interacting with humans considering how many people worshipped her in high school.”

“Worshipped?”

“Yeah, I was surprised that people didn’t make a red carpet of lunch trays or something every time she walked through the cafeteria.”

“That, makes complete sense.” You say, remembering the way that she acted in the diner, the superiority that only comes from years of being on top of a mythical food chain that benefitted the people like the high-school has-beens. You’re trying to act quite a bit more sober than you actually are - you’re not wasted by any meant, but you’re definitely not sober.

“Yeah, she’s not the best at first impressions.”

“Actually that 40% tip you guys left was one hell of a first impression, it was the insistence that I dry clean her blazer that was not ideal.” You say and the other woman rolls her eyes.

“God she’s stupid.” She mumbles under breath, rubbing her forehead with her hand which doesn’t have an entire bottle of vodka in it. “She keeps wanting to apologise but is too much of a pussy to, also she’s so used to people kissing her ass so when she needs to do shit like this she is real shitty at it.”

“Noted.” You don’t really know how else to respond, how does one respond when your, theoretical, crush’s friend tells you that your friend is not actually an asshole but is just very shitty at being an actual person. Your conversation quickly gets interrupted.

“Hey Heather,” the yellow one leans into the room, “oh hi, you’re the girl from the diner, your friend makes the best chilli dogs, oh my god-“

“Yes Heather what is it?” The green Heather says.

“You’re all called Heather?” That would be so confusing, how do they know which Heather is which? If Betty and JD had similar names, you would have no idea how to tell them apart, your head can’t quite comprehend it so you know that the alcohol is working well.

“Yeah?” Heather says as if it’s obvious.

“Wild.” Is the only thing that comes out of your mouth.

“The cops have been called, we gotta hide.” Crap, you’ve gotta find Betty and JD and motor.

“Ah fuck.”

“Bye diner girl!”

They both leave, the other Heather giving you a wave as they go, your hand gives a small wave back without thinking. You make your way back into the living room, trying to find Betty or JD, you can’t see them in between all of the bodies, and this night has really quickly changed from how you expected it to go. 

“Yo, cops!” you hear a someone shout and everyone dashes, it’s complete mayhem, everyone running in different directions. Some run out the front door and, presumably straight into the cops, others run into the garden, trying to climb over the fence. The rest of you try to hide in the house. You’ve never run away from the cops before, the police have never been called to a party you’ve been at so you’re just running on instinct right now and you’re not entirely sure what to do. Thankfully, you catch a sight of Betty and yell her name.

“Veronica! I got JD! Hide in a bathroom!” you can barely hear her over the noise.

“What?”

“They can’t check in there.”

You don’t know how truthful it is, but you trust Betty so you run to a hallway where there are, you guess, bathrooms. You try to open multiple doors, some locked, others swing open but you catch a sight of some things that you really wish you could bleach from your memory, mainly half naked couples making out. You finally find a single bathroom you can hide in. You cool yourself down by rubbing some cold water on your face, your head needs to clear and that’s one way to do it. You start to calm down a bit when someone else comes barrelling in.

Someone in a red blazer, and blonde hair.

You make eye contact.

Those goddamn blue eyes that can cut through you.

Heather.

Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

“Uh hey.”

Her voice is brusque and just like it was the first time in the diner, you would be offended but you guess it’s just the way she talks.

“Hey.”

You stand awkwardly, looking at each other. Then she turns.

“Bye.”

You grab her wrist, it’s the first time you’ve touched and it makes warmth slip up your arm, causing you to blush slightly.

“Don’t, you’re not going to find another empty room.”

She nods. You remove your hand.

You make eye contact then you both look away from each other.

Unfortunately for the both of you, the bathroom is small, the only places to sit are the toilet, the sink and the floor. Heather starts uneasily shifting from foot to foot, and that’s when you look down to see her four inch, Jesus Christ, heels. You could barely stand in four inch heels, let alone go to a party in them.

“Here, sit.” You gesture to the toilet and she awkwardly shuffles past you to sit. It’s so small that you can smell her cherry perfume and some vodka and her hand is warm against your arm when she needs some stability. You suddenly feel like you should try to act more sober than you are, but then Heather drops on top of the seat and stumbles a little bit, her hands moving floppily against her strappy heels. Good, you’re both pretty damn drunk. Bathrooms at parties are another level of odd, you go there _so_ many times in an evening and, at least you do this, make faces at yourself in the mirror and watch yourself sway as you remember how much you’ve drunk in the evening. They’re a fun little haven to remind yourself of how fun the night is, before it inevitably turns into something like this.

“Thanks.”

Can she only talk in short sentences?

“And sorry for being a bitch. In the diner. Fell into old habits. My therapist says that I do it to protect myself. Sorry.” She says it all, staring at the floor, or more specifically, staring at where the wall and ground intersect.

It’s not the best apology you’ve ever heard, but you can tell she means it.

You reckon she’s one of those people whose surprisingly bad with words.

Well, she’s bad when they have to have emotion, she’s probably great at presentations and shit that normal people have to take shots before. Betty did that once, before an economics presentation, it didn’t go too well, but to be fair she chose to have an expresso shot which was quite possible the worst decision she could’ve made for shot.

You would ask her why she felt the need to protect herself but, from experience with other drunk girls, you fear that would lead to crying or a really intense heart-to-heart or a shouting match. All three are _very_ bad in your book, you can hardly handle a crying person while sober, let alone in the state you’re in now.

You’ve sobered up a bit since you’re interaction with the green Heather; getting stressed about cops and splashing water on your face and talking with the woman who has invaded your thoughts a bit too much the last few weeks – both positively and negatively – does that too you.

“S’alright.”

She nods and you get into a silence which isn’t exactly awkward, but it isn’t exactly good either, it’s this weird limbo where you want to say something but anything you say will make it worse.

“Why do you always wear red?” You blurt out, it’s been bugging you for a while. You mean, she probably wears it because of its connotations with power and anger, so people would run away from her in school. That sounds about right. Wow, your English lit brain is really taking control. You’re sure Fleming would love to know your internal monologue right now, she really loves symbolism and what the writer theoretically meant when, in reality, a carpet is a colour because it matches the room Paulene, not because of some secret hidden message or hidden emotions throughout the book. It’s one the few things you absolutely despise about English Lit, looking too where there’s nothing.

“It’s my colour.”

She doesn’t offer you more than that. Fair, you wear a lot of blue because you like it, plus you always forget how much you own until you buy something new and it’s like oh, yeah, you own no other colours.

“Do you reckon the cops are gone yet?”

“No. This happened a few times back, Chad’ll shout when they’re all done.”

“Wait the head of the frat is called Chad? I thought that was only in movies and shit.”

“That’s the only thing Ohio has in common with movies.”

You snort at that and she smiles slightly, _only_ slightly, but it’s better than the way she was staring at the floor with a blank expression on her face.

“You said you were pre-law? How do you have time to get to parties like these.”

You don’t really know why you’re still talking, it could be because of the weird silence, but also you just wanna talk to her? There’s that thing about her that makes you want to tell her all of your secrets but also all of hers too.

“Oh, I don’t sleep.” She jokes, an element of pessimism in her tone that makes you start to grin a bit, it’s the most human you’ve seen her.

“You know I’ve met you sober _once_.”

“I’ve only met you drunk once.” She raises her eyebrow at you like she’s won the conversation, you think about it for a second, you don’t know how to respond, can you win conversations? She has apparently.

“I don’t know what to say to that.” You confess, scratching the back of your neck.

“That’s why I’m going to be the best lawyer in Ohio.” Her smile turns into a smirk, the evil kind of smirk that _really_ shouldn’t make her more attractive but it totally does.

“No, your eyes are the reason you’ll be the best lawyer in Ohio.”

Crap.

That was not what you meant to say, not that you had anything planned, but it was unexpected as it left your mouth. She looks surprised, and intrigued, you thought she would look like the cat that caught the canary or some other form of smug but her face just wants to know why.

“What?”

“Your eyes, they, uh, they’re very, uh, persistent.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that you make me want to spill all of my deepest darkest secrets to you.”

“Huh. Thanks. I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. And I’ve gotten a lot of them.” She says, arrogance popping up by the end of her statement. You roll your eyes.

“You’ve ruined the moment.”

“We were having a moment?”

“Yeah, a little banter back and forth kinda moment.”

She opens her mouth then closes it, haha, now you’ve won the conversation.

“Whatever.”

She closes her eyes for a second before groaning and rubbing her forehead. Oh god, please don’t puke, please that will make you puke because it’s gross and disgusting and ugh.

“You okay?”

“My dorm is MacMillan and I was meant to crash here but we’re gonna get kicked out of here any second now and it’s halfway across campus and I don’t want to walk by myself.”

“Mine’s Juniper, I’ll walk you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, JD and Betty have each other so I reckon they’ll be able to get back safe enough.”

“Alright! Everybody out, if I catch anyone who isn’t a member here in fifteen minutes you’re getting hit!” Chad shouts from somewhere in the house.

Time to go.

\--

Heather is carrying her shoes.

You’d offered but she made it very clear that she didn’t need your help.

She’s a _lot_ smaller than you now she has no heels on, but she made it up enough by walking along the curb on the way back to their dorms.

“Why English Lit?” She asks, teetering along a curb precariously. You stand close enough that if she were to fall you could help her but not too close because you don’t want another earful about how she doesn’t need any help.

Seriously, you’re pretty sure that you should go to the doctor except you don’t have insurance, that’s how loud she was, and right by your ear too.

Welcome to the capitalist hellhole of America.

You shrug.

“I’m good at it, I wanna be a writer but it seems unrealistic so I think I’ll end up teaching or something.”

“You’d be a good teacher.” You snort.

“Eh, I don’t know.”

“You listen, for what’s behind the words. It’s why you accepted my shitty apology earlier.”

“Well, uh, thanks.”

She smiles at you, jumping down from the curb and doing one of those gymnastic poses.

“A full ten.”

“Why thank you Madame- wait I don’t know your name.”

“Veronica Sawyer.”

“Thank you Madame Sawyer. I’m Heather Chandler.”

“I know.”

“I thought we could do a redo of our first meeting.”

“I liked our first meeting, you gave me a 40% tip, little did I know it was a red herring for your actual personality.” You joke, she gasps melodramatically.

“Rude.”

You laugh and she joins in with these little chuckles that you can’t admit make your heart melt. You’ve learnt that apart from being annoying hot, Heather has the ability to be ridiculously cute, she has those little laughs and acts like a dork on the curb and she was actually nice to you a second ago?

It isn’t that cold out, which is surprising how close it is to winter break, but your jumper and residual alcohol keep you warm. The moon is covered by a thick grey clouds but it doesn’t matter because the street lights are weirdly romantic in the way they light the streets. You’re only ever out this late for shifts at the diner, it’s odd to see the night so intensely without the smell of the diner ruining it. It doesn’t really smell like anything, except maybe Heather’s perfume which you catch a whiff of now and again – when the breeze is right and she’s close enough to you.

“You know I’m pretty sure two of our friends slept together.”

“Who?”

“Duke and Betty?”

“What? No, Betty’s Duke and _Duke_ Duke have gotta be different people.”

“Come on, how many people do you know go by ‘Duke’?”

It all clicks into place, oh _no,_ you did _not_ need that picture in your head. Nope. Definitely not what you wanted.

“I never put two and two together.”

“Here I thought you weren’t a complete dumbass.”

“Oh god I’ve heard them have sex.”

Heather’s chuckles from earlier transform into a hyena like cackle and she starts slapping her thigh with her hand.

“Do you have any brain bleach available?”

She somehow laughs even harder, wheezing slightly and ends up sitting on the sidewalk with a beam of light falling on her. It catches some of her blonde hair and she looks almost aethereal, pipe down Romeo, a part of yourself says.

“I don’t know if they make that.” She says as you sit next to her.

“I wish they did.”

She grins cheekily and nudges you, you nudge her back.

“I know I said I was sorry earlier but it was a shitty one so sorry, again.”

“Wow, that was so much less shitty.”

“Hey! I’m trying here.”

“I know you are Heather. Why did you feel the need to be a dick the second time around?”

“This is going to sound stupid but, uh, you’re cute. And I actually wanted to ask you out, but then I got in my head. And went the complete opposite route. And it was like I could see myself being a dick but I didn’t know how to stop it.”

You don’t say anything and just stare at her. Before you know it you grab her by the back of her neck and kiss her, still slightly tipsy, under a street light in Ohio state. She kisses back immediately, she’s clearly kissed a lot of people, but she’s never kissed you. You lips slide against each other until she sucks on your lower lip and uses your gasp as an opportunity to run her tongue against yours. You hand remains on her neck, the other one on her hip, pulling her closer. Her hands fist in your hair, she tries to increase the speed put you keep it slow, the way it’s heat pulls at your stomach is crazy. She seems to understand and calms down slightly, she keeps it slow, her hand gradually tugging on your hair, her tongue against yours. You end up pulling her onto your lap, it’s uncomfortable because of how low the curb is but the feeling of her in your lap and the way that she gasps when she slots right on your lap in worth it.

Everything about it is overwhelming in the best way.

Her perfume, the feeling of her, her hands everywhere, pulling, grabbing, squeezing, her mouth, hot, against yours.

You pull away after a while, she rests her forehead against yours.

“So,” you clear your throat, “do you wanna go out sometime?”

“As long as we’re nowhere near that goddamn diner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF
> 
> I am so sorry that this took so long to update, I knew where it was going but I didn't know how to write it, waking up to Cal's comment this morning was a good kick in the ass to do it - so thanks Cal :)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this conclusion, please join me on my tumblr at 'its3amandiamverytired' xx

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed xx
> 
> Comments mean the world - but please don't feel obligated lol


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